Good Night, White Knight
by DemonUntilDeath
Summary: Since he was a child, he’d imagined being rescued by a White Knight in shining armor. Since elementary school, he had been trying to be that White Knight – a hero that saved those in danger. Since then, he'd just been kidding himself. Dark/Slash
1. Prologue

(_Disclaimer_: I own nothing

_Note: _For those of you who are tuning into this because you read _The Atom That Walked into the Bar_, I am currently working on that follow up I said I'd do – Sorry it's taking so long.

So if you are reading this because of that,** thank you **for looking into my other stories – I really appreciate it and hope you enjoy this one just as much! It is Greg-centric (and will be sad but also far more adventurous and hopeful).

Also, please don't assume it won't have a happy ending! I don't pull those very often – really! On that note…please don't assume it'll be a happy ending either… ;D Maybe I just shouldn't have said anything at all. Hehe.

For those of you who are just reading because you stumbled upon it...HI! Welcome and hope you enjoy.

_Edit Note_: I apologize to anyone who read this without the proper story breaks. I returned to find ff . net had elimanted all break lines in my stories. They're fixed now and will read smoother. My apologies to all readers.

_Warning_: slash; dark/morbid/horror (overall mature) themes)

-o—o—o-

_**Good Night, White Knight**_

_Prologue_

-o—o—o-

When he was young, his father would read to him as he slowly nodded off in bed, desperately trying to stay awake to hear the end of the tale. Fairy tales were his favorite. Adventure, danger, damsels, a little bit of love, and always a happy ending.

And ever since, he too had wanted to be rescued by a White Knight in shining armor. His parents only laughed. He never understood why.

In elementary school, he played with the other kids – soccer, tag, hide and seek, and all the imaginary games the girls liked to play best. Like Princesses. He learned quickly that Princesses got rescued, just like in the stories.

But with it he learned that boys don't make good Princesses. No, boys were supposed to do the rescuing – he was supposed to be the white knight.

All the kids laughed when he didn't understand: when he explained he wanted to be the one who got rescued. He still couldn't understand why – why everyone laughed when he said that.

But he knew he didn't like it.

So ever since then, he tried to be the white knight those little girls wanted him to be in their imaginary games. He told himself he wanted to be the rescuer who saved the girls. He would be the hero that saved the day.

And then those kids wouldn't laugh. His parents wouldn't laugh.

It was in high school that he first realized his determination to be someone's knight in shining armor was as shaky as a false desire could be. His first boyfriend – his first kiss – uprooted all the beliefs he had drilled into his head.

The laughter of those kids rang in his ears for months afterwards and the scorn and shame he felt never really left him.

In college, he found a way around the troubled thoughts of saving those damsels in distress. He was a nerd in his heart and certainly in his head – and he was quickly learning what he could do with his life. At college, he knew he would eventually find a future that would make him a White Knight.

With that comfort in mind, he couldn't help the urging of his nature – the exploration and the partying and the _flirting_. Three more boyfriends and a couple of girlfriends (along with several very entertaining nights) left him with a mixture of giddiness, uncertainty, and wild abandonment.

But along with it came the shame of not having saved anyone after four years – of having been no one's white knight or any struggling damsel's hero. Having not yet decided on a career to do so in the future, he graduated with a sense of loss and confusion.

He felt as if he was letting someone down. Perhaps it was himself; perhaps his parents or those laughing children whose names he could no longer remember and whose faces had long faded from memory.

Maybe it was the characters in those fairy tales.

And so he put new determination in his step and sought out a profession that would make him feel like the Knight he knew he could be. Within three months of graduation – a science major with noteworthy grades (though, the occasional slip up due to a tad too much partying) and a rather interesting resume – he had received an e-mail with a job opening at a Las Vegas Crime Lab.

That was his chance – his golden opportunity to be someone's hero. He would save more than just damsels in distress. He would help to bring justice to those who couldn't bring it to themselves.

He was going to be a Lab Rat.

(Little did he know, he would end up bearing that title literally and figuratively, as his new Boss's test subject.)

Five months after his graduation he was living in an apartment in Las Vegas and working as a rookie at an amazing crime lab. His nerd side couldn't stop 'geeking' out over the equipment! Oh, the things he got to play with! (And they _paid _him to do it, too!)

And then _he_ walked in with a crooked smirk, brown eyes, and a Texas accent.

All thoughts of being a Knight were once more gone from his mind. All hopes of changing his life around and wearing that armor were washed from his brain.

Ever since his father had read to him in bed, he'd imagined being rescued by an armored Knight of his own. He never imagined it would come in the shape of an (incredibly sexy) Cowboy with a CSI badge.

Two years passed and he fought between indulging in the flirtations he gave his cowboy and his promise to become a White Knight too.

And then _she_ walked in with a gap-toothed smile, beautiful brown hair, and an _I-Don't-Need-Saving_ attitude.

Ever since elementary school, he had been trying to be a White Knight – a hero that saved those in distress and danger. From that moment on, he knew that he could be her white knight.

Four years passed and he fought between indulging in the flirtations his cowboy now gave him and convincing this girl who didn't need saving to let him save her.

In the end, he lost his girl to another. But towards the end, he realized, he'd stopped trying to save her.

White Knights fought through danger – they faced dragons and boiling lakes of lava and they made it through to save the day.

They didn't kill college students in alley ways.

Ever since High school, he knew he'd been kidding himself. He could never be a Knight in shining armor.

And he should have known that from the beginning. So he stopped trying to save her – to save people in general. He stopped the flirtations with his cowboy. He stopped trying to be what he wasn't.

Two more years passed in a solemn manner he had never had before. Slowly, his mannerisms had changed – his hobbies and music and habits. He got quieter – more confused and lost than ever.

What was he supposed to do, unable to model himself after those fairy tale heroes he'd always promised himself he'd be like?

White Knights in shining armor _don't kill kids_. They don't let the girls they're supposed to be saving _get kidnapped_. They don't get on planes while their cowboy's best friend _gets shot_.

He was no hero.

And maybe he'd always known that. Maybe that was why he had always wanted to be the one who got rescued – maybe he knew he'd always need it.

Maybe, even in that bed with his father's voice lulling him to sleep, he knew that this would happen. That he would mess up – again, no, _always_ – and find himself with more than he could handle.

Find himself in need of rescuing.

But White Knights don't rescue boys. And they certainly don't rescue them from sewer systems.

Delirious – fighting off the starvation, dehydration, and disease brought on by four weeks of being locked in a grimy prison beneath the burning desert – Greg Sanders stared at the distant stars, barely seen through the only freedom of his cement captivity.

He wondered if Cowboys with CSI badges rescued boys from sewers.

Because he knew White Knights only dealt with towers.

-o—o—o-

_**Good Night White Knight**_

_End Prologue_

-o—o—o-

Alright, so here we go! My next CSI story – man, I hope I can do as good as the last.

For those of you reading this who have also read _Atom_, it's gonna obviously be a bit different (as would be expected from a different story). It won't have the loose writing style so many of you commented on (sorry, that's not actually my standard writing style!) and it's not from Greg's POV.

This time, there's more actual CSI-ness (like cases!) and real Science (Yaaay, science!). Plus, you'll get more character interaction than just Greg and Nick!

So, please review and tell me how the prologue was!

**-Author Notes**-

…_brought on by four weeks…_Let me start off by saying I've already done a lot of research for this story. I am aware that you can last only (this varies somewhat on the situation) three days in a 110 degree climate (in the shade) with no water and eight to twelve weeks without food (with severe to (obviously) fatal affects). So obviously, Greg has some supply of both that will be gotten to in later chapters.

Just wanted to get that in author notes so no one wondered how an imprisoned person had survived four weeks. It'll all be gotten to in good time!

**-End A/N-**

Thanks, and please review!


	2. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer_: I (still) own nothing.

_Note_: I am so sorry for the long delay on this chapter! I am not at all happy about leaving you with nothing but a prologue for three months! That's not acceptable and I never meant to make it more than a month. Unfortunately, school started and it's one heck of a work load.

However, I am very sorry and I'll try not to let it happen again.

_Reviews: _Thank you everyone who reviewed! I really appreciated all of your comments. While I'm not very good at replying to reviews, I appreciate each and every one of you that left a comment and tried to get to those of you that had questions.

_Las Vegas Information_: I will be using places and weather conditions familiar to Las Vegas. Although it may seem somewhat unrealistic by reputation or unheard of in episodes, I assure you they are accurate. So there will be some information interspersed within this story that may not be familiar (and which I'm not entirely sure they include in the show – but I'm trying to limit anything not mentioned).

_- Cities that may be mentioned_: Boulder City, Henderson, Anthem, Summerlin, Las Vegas (all of which are brought up in the show except Boulder City and Anthem, though I may easily have forgotten or not seen the episode)

_- Places that may be mentioned: _The Wetlands, Red Rock Canyon, Mt. Charleston, Sunrise Mountain (all of which you've seen if you've watched the show, but I don't believe they've named the first or the last)

_- Temperatures and Seasons_: Despite the good jokes of Vegas's unbearable heat, Spring (the time in which this story is set) is actually a nice time of year and April and May are relatively cool months with the latter just starting to get hot. The winds start up in March and usually die down at the end of April and through spring is not the rainiest time, a few early summer storms can start brewing in May.

_Warning_: slash; dark/morbid/horror (overall mature) themes

-o—o—o-

_**Good Night, White Knight**_

_Chapter 1_

_-_o—o—o-

The beam of the flashlight swept over the darkness that seemed to encompass the room. It wasn't truly darkness, but rather a musty, dim light that gave the impression of emptiness. As if no one came around anymore.

The spotlight cast upon the bare, hardwood floors picked up little imperfections: the specks of dust missed by the last person to clean, and of course, the small drops of red liquid that had first summoned the owner of the flashlight to the empty house.

Greg Sanders squatted down, wincing as his knees seemed to creak in protest. He was too young to have creaking joints. Really. One gloved hand extended, pushing his only source of light closer to the small spattered dots of blood that decorated the wood in a random pattern.

Well, it would have been random to the untrained eye. The CSI could easily pick out the directionality, the little 'tail' the blood spot had and which way it pointed. Part of him wanted to crack a joke at a speck of blood having a tail, but the mature side of him – the side that had buried his hair gels beneath the sink and his most colorful shirts to the back of his closet – warned him against doing so.

He withheld the urge, though a small smile flickered over his features.

"Find something, G?"

That (un-gelled) head of blonde hair perked up at the question, which had come tinted with a light Texan accent, and the grin could only spread. He wasn't sure if it spread because Nick Stokes had just walked into the room or if he had just walked in while Greg was thinking about fish tails.

Squirming fish tails and Texas accents and…

'_Oh God, stop thinking!' _Greg shook his head, now having to turn away from the man should Nick's flashlight happen to pick up the pink tint of his cheeks. Perhaps fish…tails were not only a bad way to describe what he had been thinking about but were also _highly_ inappropriate in such a situation.

What the hell had happened to his so-called mature side?

"Nothing much," he replied, trying to keep the strain out of his voice and ending up with something that sounded like Seriousness trying to strangle Amusement with a lasso.

Greg shook his head and decided he was _never_ eating at the Hot Rod Grille before he went to work again. Apparently burgers after having just awakened, no matter how delicious, did something detrimental to his thought process…and sense of humor.

Nick crouched down in front of him, causing Greg to look back over and pray his cheeks weren't red. Luckily, the Texan was staring at the ground. "You've got blood spatter here."

"Yeah…that." Genius. Greg was so busy making jokes in his head and then trying to cover them with his mouth that he was just making a fool of himself in front of Nick, even without the aid of childish thoughts. He gave himself a mental shake to get back on track, the beam of his flashlight joining Nick's. "Directionality suggests that whatever was bleeding, or dripping blood, went that way."

He waved his flashlight towards the back door, which wasn't closed all the way. There were a few more blood drops by the floor over there, from what he could see. Greg glanced back at Nick, who had followed his gaze to the door. "I think our vic was carried out of here…the blood dripping from the head wound."

"Yeah," Nick agreed as he stood, but something in his tone said he wasn't finished. Greg looked up at him, remaining in his crouch even as his knees continued to protest. "But we can only assume it was a head wound."

The blonde CSI stood, trying not to grimace as his knee cracked. Seriously, he was supposed to be the ideal model of young and handsome. Not old and rickety.

"There's blood spatter on the wall, same height as our missing persons. And blood analysis would suggest it was caused by blunt force trauma." Greg bumped the base of his palm to his temple, almost a demonstration of what he thought happened. "Someone slammed our vic's head into the wall and carried him out of here…if it's the victim's blood, of course."

Nick couldn't help a small grin at the other CSI and Greg was happy to note there was a tinge of pride in it. The Texan agreed with his assessment. More than anything, he had been testing the once-lab rat to keep his skills sharp, as they still needed improvement. He gave a nod and swept his flashlight across the room once more: searching for anything they'd missed.

"I think you're right," he said as he looked around. The room they stood in, the kitchen, was in a state of disarray. Two of the chairs at the kitchen table had been toppled and several items were scattered across the floor, making it hard to tell which surface they had originally occupied in the room. "It's just like the others, in fact."

Greg followed Nick's eyes around the room: taking in what he did, most likely recalling the same things Nick had. A blood spattered wall, approximately head-level (relative to each victim), signs of a struggle, often a chase throughout the home, and no victim.

That would make it seven – no, eight now – missing persons. Persons with matching blood-spattered walls: matching struggles.

Matching disappearing acts.

Greg let out a sigh, looking back down at the blood spatter and wondering if it belonged to Peter Carle. While the lab could answer that question for him, he knew this was one of those cases that wouldn't be solved by morning. They'd be lucky if they even found a new clue.

But he had to be positive. What would Grissom say in this situation? Oh, something about each new case bringing new evidence. New leads. New chances to find who did this.

"Well, I still need to photograph this blood and the blood by the door over there," Greg said, his hopes and attitude up a little. Grissom's words were good for that. Sometimes. After all, the rather clueless-about-the-living (and therefore morale) man wasn't that great with words, so it didn't always work…in fact, it usually didn't.

But who cared, because it had this time, and Greg was feeling a little more optimistic that they would find something to help them.

Nick was nodding again, looking at the camera around Greg's neck for a moment. "Alright, I'm done in the other room, so I'll check on Riley – make sure she doesn't need help on the perimeter."

Both men grew silent for a minute. Greg felt somewhat bad for Riley Adams, labeled from day one as the 'new girl'. She seemed like a nice enough person (certainly eccentric enough for his tastes. His 'old' self - the self not buried by 'maturity' – would have jumped at the chance of getting to know her better). He only wished that just mentioning her name didn't make them all think of why she was here.

Here as a replacement for Warrick.

"Yeah, alright," Greg tried to get passed the rough moment of silence, giving Nick a small smile. The Texan returned it before heading for the front door, but not before passing the blonde CSI and giving him a light pat on the shoulder, almost a comforting grip for just a moment.

The ex-lab rat felt his stomach flutter. These little touches had become far more common lately, increasing dramatically since…well, since Riley had joined them. It was a comfort to the younger CSI. Warrick's…absence had been, well, hard on him.

He'd never lost anyone close to him before and Warrick had been like an older brother – someone he looked up to and learned from. More than that, the man's death had changed Nick, someone Greg's life seemed based upon, even though he'd never intended things to end up that way.

Ever since the under-sheriff's arrest, Nick had been angry – defensive. He was tense and tired as they all were but he was relying on his defense mechanism to cover his grief. And his mechanism was usually to bite everyone's head off.

Over the eight years they had worked together, it had become clear to Greg that when Nick was in a bad mood, he tended to follow shortly after for no other reason. Only Greg didn't have an anger mechanism. Greg just didn't get angry.

Instead, he got depressed. Greg Sanders was the type of person whose self-defense mechanism was a paradox: to protect himself from grief he found other things to be depressed about. His immaturity, his failures and incapability, his destined love-life – complete with a lack of Texas Cowboys – and every other little thing his mind could nitpick and tell him was wrong and needed to be fixed but never would be: never could be.

So when Nick, who had seemed to put a hiatus on their little flirting bouts – indefinitely by the way things had been going – started giving him comforting pats, or brushing his hand for seconds longer than necessary when handing off case files, Greg's heart began to lift and smiles started appearing on his lips again. There was still the sorrow that lingered there – the anger and tension in all of Nick's movements and the self-deprecating thoughts in Greg's mind – but it had started to lift as the months ticked by.

Nick traced his own footsteps back through the Carle house, sweeping his flashlight back and forth in case they had missed anything on their walk-through and further inspection. As he stepped through the front door, his brown boots clicking on the cement steps outside, he breathed in the crisp air.

He loved this time of year. The end of April was preferable to the current days of early May, true, but the nights were still chilly enough as they climbed out of the fifties and started dilly-dallying in the sixties with every passing evening. The days were less so, now that they were starting to reach the beginnings of the nineties, but still, with the strong Spring winds that Vegas was well known for, and the knowledge that the thermometer wasn't reading triple digits yet, the end of Spring was a wonderful time to live in the city of Sin.

Plus, he slept during the day anyway, so what did he care what the thermometer said at those hours.

Riley was at the back entrance of the house, the door which lead to the kitchen - and what Nick and Greg suspected was the exit and possibly entrance of the perpetrator. She was on all fours in the grass, flashlight lying to the side and a small bucket in front of her. Her arm rotated with each churn to the plaster in the container.

Nick walked up to her, making sure his approach made enough noise so as not to surprise her. It was a habit he'd come into after his kidnapping – even now, years later, a quiet approach could send him into a violent, albeit brief, state of panic. She glanced up at him, acknowledging his presence with a nod, before returning to what she was doing.

Brown eyes scanned over the ground, easily catching the light imprint left by a shoe. He followed the footprint, trying to catch any others in the dirt. However, it was a shallow impression, and though there were several patches of disturbed, scuffed soil with vague or partial imprints to hint at what had caused them, there wasn't anything better than the indentation Riley was about to lift.

"You think it's our guy?" she asked, tipping the bucket and letting the smooth white paste fill up the impression.

"Well, print's movin' away from the house," Nick replied, glancing to the back door of the Boulder City home. Greg was still in the kitchen, the Texan watching the occasional flashlight beam dart around. He turned and looked to where the footprint led, presuming that the suspect left the kitchen, walked through the grass of the backyard, and made a straight line for the fence.

Riley seemed to be thinking along those lines as well. "You know, that fence is probably eight feet tall," she commented, almost to herself. "You'd have to be in pretty good shape to get over that."

Nick nodded, knowing he could pull himself up and over the wall but wondering just how their perpetrator managed it – and all with the body of their missing person, if his and Greg's theory was correct. "Neighbors said Mr. Carle liked his privacy: installed the fence after his 'complaints' about local noise were ignored."

Riley poked the hardening liquid, not exactly the professional approach to checking if it was ready to lift, but certainly a workable one. "Well, I'll check it out for prints – not that you're gonna get any off of that brick. But I'll look anyways."

"Good. Greg's almost done with the inside," the CSI level three continued, his eyes following the girl's movements.

"Well, this was about all I found out here," the newest member of the team returned, well aware that it was the information Nick was seeking. "There were fingerprints on some of the windows – I lifted them – but they're not consistent with what the other evidence is giving us. Most likely, they're our vic's or unrelated to the case."

Nick took in all of the information as he stood, going over his own theories as she spoke. "Alright, head back to the lab when you're done. Work on the shoe print. See if it's a match to the other scenes."

Riley merely nodded once more, and the lead CSI on the seemingly clueless scene went off to collect Greg and head back to the lab himself, praying for some breakthrough he knew didn't exist.

-o—o—o-

"Nothing." Greg lifted tired, weary eyes as Nick slammed a photo down on the layout table for the seventh time that night. "That's what we have: nothing!"

The ex-lab rat had tried to calm his friend down, knowing Nick hated to be stuck on a case – especially when this case stretched back to seven other cold crimes. However, the Texan had a natural anger counter that always jumped up quickly and didn't settle down easily.

"The footprint matches ones found at previous scenes – the Harrien case, the Schepar's…" Greg trailed off, knowing he was only going over information they already knew – information they had already repeated several times that night.

Well, morning now.

Greg rubbed his eyes as Nick leaned against the table, supported by spread arms. He was glaring down at the photos, searching for something he only hoped to be there because he knew in his mind that it wasn't.

"Nick, we're exhausted," the Californian started again, trying a different tactic. "We're not getting anywhere on this tonight; let's get some sleep and try again tomorrow."

"We haven't figured one new thing out."

The argument was delivered without hesitation. Greg withheld the sigh he wanted so badly to release. No matter how much he loved the man before him, Nick was still a stubborn mule when it came to backing down.

"And we won't either, not tonight; neither of us can even keep our eyes open." Greg moved over to stand beside the Texan. He briefly thought of pulling him away from the table, or cleaning up the photos at which he was staring so fiercely. But he knew it would only anger the man further.

He was right in what he said; they had nothing.

This scene was just like the others; it started with a break-in that neighbors or a passerby reported and ended with a missing person.

Peter Carle had made no outstanding credit card charges in the last forty-eight hours, nor had he or anyone else used his cards since the B&E had been called in. The last charge had been made at five fifty-seven in the evening; a gas charge at the corner of Eastern and Windmill. He lived a mere three blocks away, so there was nothing unusual about that.

His cell phone records held a similarity. No out-going calls had been made since two that same afternoon and four unanswered calls – one from a coworker and three from his sister – had occurred over various times after seven. They assumed the attacker had made his move between six and seven that evening.

In early Spring, with the sun setting later each day, it was very possible that it had still been light out – even the dim light of a sinking sun. It meant that their attacker was reckless.

But even that wasn't new information.

On all eight cases, the man (gender had been one of the only things they could go on, considering the size thirteen, unidentifiable boot prints found) had taken no precautions in concealing his presence or actions. Footprints, fingerprints, DNA from lip smudges on glasses and blood drawn in an obvious struggle, hair both shed and pulled from the roots; he'd left it all behind for them to have.

And they had nothing.

Nothing in any of the databases – CODIS, AFIS, even NDIS - had turned up. The blood was just like any other blood: no unique diseases, characteristics, or even DNA sequencing (Greg had examined it himself, wondering if possibly this man could have been dumped into a vat of radioactive goo as a child and developed the unique ability to just disappear. If he could, it hadn't shown up in his blood.)

They knew he was a tall (estimated 6'5"), dark haired (the strands were so dark brown they had been near black) man with dandruff - the only unique characteristic they could find among all of him that he left behind.

And only fifty percent of the world's population suffered from the same uniqueness.

They couldn't say what race – guessing Caucasian merely out of percentages. They couldn't say his build, though they assumed he was muscular considering the damage he had caused and the eight people, some with a relatively decent ability to protect themselves, he had taken down.

From the evidence found at every scene – the same with all eight missing persons – he had smashed their heads into a wall once he'd taken control of the situation. The injury would result in unconsciousness, or at least a dazed state that would allow him to carry them away unhindered. And then he would vanish along with the victim, leaving more evidence than any other criminal, and yet leaving them with nothing.

Just like Anthony Thomas, Julie Yolan, Christopher Harrien, Michael Lewington, Annie Schepar, Karen Petersen, and Robert McClarr, Peter Carle had vanished without a trace.

Nick sagged in a defeated manner, shoulders slumped and head hanging. He knew there was nothing to go on, that they probably wouldn't find anything. They could only wait until whoever this man was struck again.

Taking away another innocent person.

Brown eyes looked up at a hand laid gently on his shoulder. Greg was staring at him with an urging look – a plea for him to let it go for the night. He wasn't sure he could comply.

But he could see the reason behind it.

"Alright," he muttered, pulling away from the layout table and the images that had driven him to such anger. "You're right, let's call it."

Greg gave an approving – thankful – nod. They could continue tomorrow when they were well rested (though he had a feeling both of them would lose sleep as their brains continued to search for something they'd missed).

He led the way to the locker room, the two gathering their belongings to be taken home (coat, wallet, keys: the usual). Brown eyes darted to the side, taking in Nick's disheveled, tired state. Worried about the brunette, he fiddled with the keys in his pocket.

"You want me to drive you home?" If it were any other occasion, he might have blushed at the suggestion – his mind leading to other places. However, no matter how much he wanted to care for the Texan when he was dismayed by a case or struggling with insecurities and frustrations, now wasn't the time to bring it up in such a manner.

Nick just shook his head. It wasn't odd for the two of them to crash at one of their houses – when one of them was too tired to drive or needed the comforting presence of another. But right now, he didn't want company. He wanted time to think and go over the case. Greg would not be a comforting presence; he'd be a presence nagging him to get sleep and interrupting his thought processes.

Greg seemed to know what he was thinking, or so he thought, as he gave a somewhat disheartened nod. Nick pushed away the flash of guilt; he hated when he was the cause of a dejected look on Greg's usually childish, excited face.

But right now he was frustrated, and such a state of mind usually made it easier to push away that guilt until he could deal with it later. Which he usually didn't.

The two CSIs headed into the parking garage and went to their respective vehicles, a frustrated Texan and a dismayed Californian heading back to their separate homes.

-o—o—o-

Greg gave a tired and somewhat depressed sigh as he managed to unlock his front door, annoyed that the key stuck every time. Throwing his coat down on the couch, which was slowly growing a pile of similar clothing, he dug out his most comfortable (and therefore, oldest) sweatshirt.

His apartment was nothing impressive by any means (he was hardly ever there, after all) but it worked well for his lifestyle. Consisting of old pizza boxes, dirty laundry, Chinese food containers, clean laundry, papers, books, and DVDs spread chaotically throughout the room, it was home. He couldn't really recall when it was that he had last cleaned the place (even when he had lived with his mom and had her nagging him all the time, he'd still never been very good at keeping his room clean).

Setting his keys down on the kitchen table, covered in more take-out containers and piles of mail, he made his way over to the fridge, pulling it open and bending over to get a look at its contents.

Which wasn't much. He hadn't had time for grocery shopping in…ever, hence the take out boxes. But he was too tired to order food and wait for it to be delivered. Half of his brain was just saying sleep – forgo the food and get some rest. But his stomach strongly disagreed, growling and rumbling and making all forms of noise in its protest.

With an aggravated sigh, he started the search for his phone, moving the used coffee mugs that littered the counter. He gave a victorious cry as his fingers wrapped around the device, lifting it from under a stack of magazines that had probably been there for more than a year. If he ever learned to put the phone back in its receiver, he just might have an easier time finding it.

Settling on pizza – as the twenty-four hour Chinese place wasn't that good – he placed his order (a tad of annoyance breaking through his fatigue when he had been put on hold), grabbed a beer (one of the only things in his fridge) and settled into the couch. He hadn't made it past reaching for the remote control when there was a knock at his front door.

Knowing the seven minutes that had passed between his phone-order and the remote control was far too short for pizza to be made, Greg frowned as he climbed to his feet. He supposed an occasional person might knock on his door at six-thirty in the morning (Nick, the Pizza Guy (already ruled out) and maybe his landlord…) he walked over and pulled it open, noting how he had forgotten to lock in when he'd entered.

The man before him was tall; and this wasn't coming from a small man as Greg himself was over six feet. But his morning guest was more than a head taller, the CSI only coming up to his shoulders. His black hair, ragged and looking like it hadn't been brushed in a year, was greasy and hung to the nape of his neck. The rough look continued with his unshaven face – the result of at least a two-week shave-free spree.

Dark skin – though Greg wouldn't have called him anything but Caucasian – was marred with a layer of grime and dirt, perhaps enhancing what the dim lighting and dark pigment was already affecting. With his jeans – ragged and torn at the knees and hems – and Lakers jacket – old and nearly worn to the threads – little helped the already 'I'm-Evil-Don't-Trust-Me' impression seeping out of this man.

Greg, a normally kind and usually polite man (as his mother had raised him to be), would ordinarily question the new arrival. However, there was something about this man that immediately put him on guard. He'd never been that big on horror movies, but this guy seemed to come right out of a flick with an ax murderer or hockey mask. Before he could stop himself or even close the door (_not that a thin piece of wood would really keep Colossus here at bay_, Greg thought), he found himself taking a step back.

As his fingers twitched against his side, brain hesitating at his arm's urge to grip the door and slam it into his early visitor's face, the man lunged.

Greg stumbled back with a shout of surprise, twisting his body to turn the other way and run from the large figure launching forward. He felt thick fingers dig into his sweatshirt before the pull caught up with him and sent him flying backwards with a choking sound. His hood was securely in the grip of the intruder, the backlash of which had nearly sent him to the floor.

But the CSI had been the focal point of many would-be bullies throughout his schooling and he'd quickly learned the art of escape. And even though it had been years since he'd had to use it, such a craft wasn't easily forgotten with his job.

He twisted around twice, quicker than he could follow himself. The cloth of the sweatshirt, thick for insulation, wrapped around itself tightly and the suddenly constricted fabric was torn from the man's stubby grip. Greg was off immediately, sprinting with the speed of a lithe young man who had grown up being pursued.

The man behind him gave chase; his movements were heavy and his bulky form didn't move nearly as fast as his younger prey. However, in a small apartment with only one entrance in and out (excluding windows that were two floors off the ground), such an advantage meant next to nothing.

It wasn't three minutes later that the two found themselves on opposite sides of the table that Greg used as both a mail holder and temporary waste basket for take-out containers. The ex-lab rat was breathing heavily: more from his rapid heartbeat and rising fear that from the brief chase.

His apartment, he took brief note, resembled something akin to a tornado that had passed through a landfill. What hadn't been knocked off of counters or the occasional surface that had gotten in their way was already a mess from Greg's haphazard form of living. Papers, clothes, empty food boxes and cans, books, CD's – they now littered the floor in spilled and sometimes trampled puddles where before they had been in overflowing piles.

'Colossus' stood across from him, broad shoulders silently heaving up and down from the pursuit. His face, now lit by the kitchen lights above, was furled into an angry frown, as if he had expected Greg to simply stand still and be caught. Said sandy-haired man edged to the left, heart pounding so hard he was sure his next-door neighbor would hear it.

If only he would, then he might call for help.

The man edged to his right, closing the distance between them by mere centimeters. Greg moved back, retreating to the safety of wooden distance. Unfortunately, he was on the wrong side of that wood – for the door to his apartment, still hanging open, was behind his unwelcomed visitor.

As his brown eyes darted to the door, brain furiously trying to come up with a way to get there, the man leaned forward. Before Greg knew what was happening, his safety wall – the kitchen table – was flying up at him.

He gave a shout, stumbling back with raised arms as the table tumbled over. Luckily, his small apartment meant small furniture, and the table only clipped his arms, scraping skin off before crashing to the floor. Magazines, envelopes, and papers went flying, scattering across the linoleum floor of the kitchen.

Greg tried to back up, thinking now was his opportunity to dodge the beast of a man and make a bolt to the door. He felt the slippery material of the magazine beneath his foot seconds before his feet were swept out from under him and he landed heavily on his bottom, continuing with the momentum he'd gathered and sprawled onto his back.

He was lucky he hadn't smashed his skull into the hard floor as he scrambled to climb up, mind fighting to escape, comprehend, and problem solve all at the same time. Greg stumbled on the papers, which seemed very much to like his smooth floor. He slipped twice more on his mad dash, half of which he spent on all fours, as the man clambered towards him, having to climb over his own mess.

The CSI's fingers brushed the edge of the door when that thick hand wrapped around his ankle. Half standing, half kneeling in his stretch for the only escape, he cried out as the man yanked him backwards. His chin hit the ground and he gave a muffled grunt as blood filled his mouth from his bitten tongue.

Fingers dug into the carpet as he continued to be pulled backwards. Only when a well-aimed kick connected to the man's jaw was he able to clamber up once more. However, he hadn't made it within arm's breadth of the door before he was once again restrained.

The grip again on his hood yanked him back so strongly that he did choke, throat constricting as his windpipe was momentarily cut off by the harsh pull. He collided into a solid form, hands going to the neck of his sweatshirt to loosen the tightening neckline.

Massive fingers gripped his hair, the strands long enough to fist easily. He'd been meaning to cut it – it had been growing closer to his younger hairstyles, and such had always made him nostalgic for the good old gel days.

He cried out as he was shoved forwards by the hand encompassing half his skull and mercilessly guiding him by his prided hair. With a gasp, struggling against the grip and the tightened constriction around his neck, brown eyes widened before his head met wall.

Stars danced before his eyes – flashes of white and dark and splotches of the two combining over the foreground of his vision, _becoming_ his vision. He blinked, trying to see past the dazed obstruction. His cheek was pressed flat against the plaster wall of his apartment, a few feet from the door.

He needed to scream – to make noise that the whole complex would hear through the open entrance he hadn't been able to reach. But his vocal chords seemed stilled; his brain fuzzy; his vision dimmed. He felt warmth spreading down his face, smearing across his skin.

And it all seemed so vaguely familiar, like déjà vu. The blood flowing from his temple, the face pressed to the surface of plaster and paint, the hand gripping his hair – pulling him away from the wall, the floating sensation as he was heaved up and slung over a meaty shoulder, and finally the darkness that consumed his vision.

It all seemed like he'd witnessed it before.

Eight times, in fact.

-o—o—o—

**Good Night White Knight**

_Chapter 1_

End

-o—o—o-

Okay, hopefully I didn't sound like a know-it all from the beginning notes (because trust, me I'm not!) and hopefully the information that was provided was also explained through context of the story.

If not, let me know that I'm sounding like a know-it-all-that-doesn't-know-what-she's-talking-about.

Also, I hope it was relatively clear that the chapter went back in time to tell the beginning of the story. From here on out it will be a mixture of third person point of view between Nick's role and Greg's role, leading up to the prologue.

Thanks to my Beta-Reader KyoHana, for getting this back to me so quickly and for the encouragement. And for watching CSI just so she could Beta this.

Again, I apologize for the delay and hope you all enjoyed. Oh, and please review with comments, critique, or questions.


	3. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer_: I (continue to) own nothing.

_Las Vegas Information_:

_- Cities that may be mentioned_: Boulder City, Henderson, Anthem, Summerlin, Las Vegas

_- Places that may be mentioned_:The Wetlands, Red Rock Canyon, Mt. Charleston, Sunrise Mountain

_- Temperatures and_ _Seasons_: Set in May with temperatures ranging from high seventies to low hundreds, but usually keeping to the mid eighties or low nineties.

_Warning_: slash; dark/morbid/horror (overall mature) themes

_Thanks to_: All my reviewers as well as my fabulous beta, **KyoHana**

-o—o—o-

_**Good Night, White Knight**_

_Chapter 2_

-o—o—o-

Morning had just become afternoon when Gil Grissom found himself entering through the automatic doors of Las Vegas' CSI Lab. It was a good six hours before his shift was to start, but he, unfortunately, had a large amount of paperwork he needed to get caught up. Plus, there were some fish he wanted to look at again.

The biggest and most slippery being the one Greg and Nick were currently trying to catch.

He was halfway through his paperwork, around three o'clock, when his cell rang. Without taking his eyes off of the overtime document he was scanning (and noticing that quite a few of his employees worked too much…as he sat in his office hours before his shift…), he picked the buzzing phone up off his desk and flipped it open.

"Grissom."

There was a pause on the other end, a sense of hesitation that immediately had Gil picking his head up, taking his eyes off of his work. He was about to repeat his name, perhaps an incentive for whoever was calling (he hadn't bothered looking at the ID, after all) to start talking.

"Gil." There wasn't any need, as the voice greeted him with less contempt than he'd heard in awhile. He leaned back in his chair, taking his glasses off in contemplation.

"Conrad," he greeted in return, wondering if their daily battle of words was about to get underway. The two of them were hardly ever civil enough with one another to actually hold a decent conversation; it usually consisted of him dancing around his superior's words while said superior just got angrier and more demanding.

However, something didn't seem right. The initial reluctance to say anything – and he doubted that was a phone error – put him a little on guard. Something deep in his gut, that part of him he relied heavily upon, despite it's less-than scientific methodology, was telling him that something was desperately wrong.

He scanned his mind quickly in that pause, trying to figure out anything that might give him a clue to why his instincts were suddenly going haywire. He came up with nothing by the time Ecklie gathered himself to speak.

"Day shift got called to a scene this morning," the new undersheriff started, clearing his throat just before beginning. His voice was even enough, but that hesitation was still present. Grissom just blinked at the news, which seemed to be a given for him.

Day shift worked the mornings and it was their job, after all, to go to scenes.

The night supervisor said nothing, however, letting his boss continue. Whatever this news was, his gut tightening at the delay, would be delivered faster if he didn't interrupt now.

"It's the same MO as the Thomas case." This time, Grissom shifted, straightening up a bit, and his eyes immediately sought his board of Fish, the ones that had gotten away. The Thomas case had been the first in a series of eight currently missing people.

The eighth, having been added to the growing count just last night, had been assigned to Nick and Greg.

He frowned. It wasn't like a serial offender (they had no proof that he'd actually _killed _anyone, though Grissom had no doubt) to commit an act again so quickly. There was an inclination, as they escalated in their crimes, to speed up; to commit their next offense sooner; to get that next high faster.

But the very next day was pushing it for a crime of this extent, especially as it jumped out of pattern. From what they could tell, the victims appeared to be chosen at random every three to four weeks, with some exception to that number. To have such a dramatic difference in predictability meant something had changed: something had, quite possibly, gone wrong.

Grissom ran a hand over his eyes, trying to rid himself of the headache he was soon to have. He both hated and loved the thrill of a new challenge. There was enjoyment in the puzzle, but frustration when it didn't make any logical sense.

And this one was definitely becoming a frustration.

"I'll get the information from Days," he replied, beginning to organize his papers. He was pretty sure there was a report on what Graveyard had found somewhere in the mess of documents. "I'll hand it over to Nick and Greg when they come in tonight."

There was that hesitation again. He could tell Ecklie had something to say, he even thought he heard the man take in a breath. But nothing came.

He wasn't sure why his stomach suddenly knotted tighter than before, but he didn't like it. It made him worry that reporting the scene wasn't Ecklie's only reason for the call. In fact, the undersheriff wouldn't have called for such a matter, it wasn't his job (and Conrad wasn't the type to go above and beyond). He also wasn't the type to be reluctant about business.

The fact that he wasn't snapping out orders should have been his first clue. The only thing that seemed to register that all was not as it should be, though, was the knot in Grissom's stomach.

"Gil," Conrad began again, the attempts to remain detached and profession evident in his voice. Dread added to those knots, weighing them down and making Grissom shift uneasily. "The missing person is Greg Sanders."

Everything went silent.

It wasn't your typical silence, the type where there is simply no noise. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence either, the type where there's noise but the tension in the room pushes it into all the corners so it's dimmed and usually missed.

This was a silence he had experienced few times before, and every time was when one of his CSI's – a member of a tightly knit family – was in grave danger.

His grip on the phone tightened, his chair squeaking as he straightened. His eyes lost focus, staring off somewhere past the lab he couldn't see.

How? That was the first question his rational mind forced him to answer. The offender must have been at the scene; that was the only logical conclusion. He returned to the scene and followed Greg.

His rapid thoughts flew, contemplating everything this meant. It meant their suspect had planned ahead; instead of the random offenses, this one had, at least, been premeditated to an extent. It meant it wasn't random; it was quite possible he had found all his victims this way and followed them to their homes. It was random to a point, but it still gave them a starting point.

It didn't take long for his brain to run out of logical reasoning. Because it also meant that one of his CSI's was now missing and in the hands of a man who had taken eight other people. People they still hadn't found.

His throat tightened and he finally moved, lowering his eyes as he looked down at the papers on his desk. Once again, someone he cared about, someone he supervised almost every day for eight years, had gone missing while he was what? Doing paperwork?

He felt tired suddenly, weary and every bit as old as he was.

Conrad, who hadn't spoken in at least a few minutes, cleared his throat once more. Grissom tried to do the same, to remain professional. He knew from experience that it was an exercise in futility.

"I can't have your people working on this case," Ecklie continued. "You know that."

Strength formed very suddenly in the midst of the dread and knots and he stood, forsaking the desk and all its useless documents. He moved around the large piece of furniture, heading for the door of his office. His grip was still tight on the phone, his throat still thick, but his words were strong.

"Then let them work on the others," he replied, opening his office door and moving through it quickly. There was no way in hell his team wouldn't work on this case, even if it was only going over the other eight. "Let Grave shift help, indirectly if need be. He's one of ours, Conrad."

There was a brief pause and Grissom imagined the undersheriff nodding. It was odd how well he knew that man sometimes. "He's one of _us_, Grissom." That was all the compassion that would be spoken by a man who preferred to remain aloof. His tone changed with his next words. "I've put this at top priority, Gil. Jim Brass has been informed. I will leave it to you to tell your team."

Grissom was already heading towards Trace, though he knew it wouldn't be Hodges he found there, but the Swing tech. "Thank you, Conrad."

There was another pause, one that would have surprised Gil Grissom, had the man been paying any attention to the phone anymore. It appeared Conrad was losing a bit of his infamous detachment. Or perhaps this was just a moment where he felt the need to act like a decent human being.

"I'm sorry, Gil."

Grissom hung up the phone without replying, knowing that such a thing wouldn't do either of them any good and that this was just how things were – the way they should be. He pushed open the glass door of the lab and entered, the vaguely familiar Swing tech lifting his head in surprise, but the Grave's supervisor wasn't paying any attention.

He was preoccupied, knowing he was going to have to call his team in for another emergency.

-o—o—o-

It wasn't the light pouring over his closed eyelids or the uncomfortable heat of his location that awakened Greg. It was the smell. Something had died in his apartment and begun to rot, clearly, because he woke up with the distinct need to throw up… or find fresh air.

Or quite possibly throw up and then find fresh air.

Brown eyes opened, mind fighting the pounding headache he had with the thought of getting out of his bedroom and then finding whatever had died. Wondering if the pain trying to split his head open had anything to do with the smell (perhaps they had had some sort of chemical leak instead…had he been in the lab again?), Greg rolled over.

His body froze, everything stopping suddenly, including the pounding in his head, as he came face-to-face with blue eyes that were clouded over in death.

A scream broke through the air as Greg attempted to scramble back, realizing he had been inches from a very dead body. Not that he wasn't used to dead bodies, but waking up next to one had the tendency to give one a near-heartache. And then insert some very horrid thoughts into said one's mind.

Were he not so shaken at the moment, those horrified thoughts might have turned into morbid humor.

Of course, the chance of that happening ended the minute he attempted to flee, scrambling backwards and away from the body. His bottom connected with something solid behind him, his hand landing on fabric covering that solid mass.

Greg felt as if he were suddenly in a horror movie, slow-motion turning his head, knowing already what he would see, and looking down at what he was currently leaning against and on. Although he was sure he moved faster than he felt, the suspense lay thick in the air.

Another body, blood long dried upon its forehead, stared upwards, unseeing. Another scream, ripping at his throat and telling him that he was the one making that noise, echoed through the air, resounding in whatever room he was in. Shaking worse than he ever had before, nausea gripping at his organs, fear pulsing in his veins, Greg clambered to his feet, spinning in a tight circle.

There were bodies. Everywhere.

His fear and survival instincts kicked in, both helping and hindering his movements as he stumbled over the body directly in front of him. There was a ledge – a cement ledge that was four feet above the ground on which he was now standing. Above the bodies. Above the death.

It didn't occur to him that he was using one body, sufficiently more decayed than the others, as a human step-ladder until something crunched beneath his foot. He didn't look down – forced his eyes to remain straight ahead as he kicked off of the less-solid body, a wave of revulsion sweeping through him at the sickening sound as the body folded in on itself, and climbed onto the ledge.

Throwing up was his first priority. His whole body shook as he heaved, on all fours. and emptied his stomach of the dinner he had caught before his shift, some hours ago. His stomach muscles continued to convulse, further ridding him of any liquids and acidic bile residing in his stomach as well.

After several minutes of forcing back his gag reflex, mostly unsuccessfully, his body began to calm somewhat and his stomach quelled its rebellion. He was left gasping, shifting on his hands and knees to remove himself from his inner contents. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, ignoring anything that transferred and simply dealing with keeping anything further from coming up.

As he slowly managed to regain control of his motor functions and digestive system, he allowed himself to sit back on his calves, trying to breathe calmly. The latter proved more difficult, as the smell that had first awakened him returned, as did the pounding in his head. Forcing himself to breathe only through his mouth and exhale with his nose, lest he throw up again, he managed to block the worst of it. Having dealt with the smell of decay almost every day for more than two years aided him now, but he had never been without an escape route leading to fresh air.

And looking around now, he realized with a shock of fear, there wasn't one.

He was in some sort of room. It was made of cement, square in shape. From just looking around, sewer was his first impression. There were puddles of water on the ground amid the strewn bodies – which he decided not to think about just yet – as well as severed branches, dead leaves, and scattered stones.

It wasn't fully enclosed, either; his current location lacked two walls and those were his first source of hope. One, to the right of his ledge, led into darkness and was blocked by an iron grid, most likely to keep the large objects floating in the water during storms from blocking up the rest of the drainage system. The cement walls continued on until the light no longer perceived them, presumably carrying on farther into the city.

To his left was the outdoors. He could feel the heat of late spring pouring in from outside and the light that filtered in told him it was day time. Moving to the edge of the outcropped ledge to get a better look, he realized that the bars blocking this exit were not meant to be there. They had been welded together and cemented down some time after the initial sewer was built; it hadn't been done very neatly.

Steeling himself, repeating in his head that he had been around dead bodies all the time and never let it bother him, Greg slid down from his ledge, carefully avoiding the body he had used for a leg up. Moving around the forms – ten of them, he counted – he proceeded to those bars. Wrapping his hands around the rusty metal that blocked his escape, he began rattling them.

They didn't budge.

Perhaps they hadn't been very neatly added to make his little prison, but they were effective. He wasn't going to get out that way anytime soon.

Looking beyond the bars, he realized that the light coming in was actually filtering in from a good twenty feet away. The enclosed drainage system he was in continued for another two dozen feet before opening up into the desert beyond, where the loose stones formed a dry riverbed and told him it was a wash that most likely led up into the mountains.

He glanced back, remembering the scattered foliage and some of those river stones. When it rained, all the water from the mountains would flow directly into where he was. He swallowed thickly, realizing now that most of the bodies were more towards the iron grid at the other end, indicating they'd been pushed their by a watery force.

If he were still trapped come the first downpours of summer, he was a dead man.

He rattled the bars again, just for good measure, and his hope weakened when they didn't. "Shit!" he cursed, running a dirty hand through his hair without notice, pacing for a few seconds before looking back out. Part of him, that despair that had been trying to conquer his natural-born optimism, withered back a bit as his eyes adjusted to the much brighter outdoors.

There was an abundance of desert plants – bushes, not cacti. He knew those bushes and he knew what so many of them meant lining the loose stones that led to the entrance of his cement cage. The Wetlands. He was somewhere in the Wetlands, which meant he wasn't that far from civilization. He would have to watch the shadows move across the entrance of the wash to figure out where, but he knew he wasn't that far.

The Wetlands, surprisingly wet for the desert, ran along the outskirts of East Las Vegas and all the way to Lake Las Vegas, curving around Sunrise Mountain. That meant he was somewhere east of the strip in the half circle that made up the desert park.

He couldn't recall where the washes led to the drainage canals running through Vegas itself, since he'd never done more than hike once or twice around that area, but he knew he couldn't be far from the suburbs that ran along the edge.

Forcing his mind to calm down, he tried to think about the situation. If the lay of the bodies showed that the water would flow into the sewer from the mountain wash, than he was most likely in the far side of the Wetlands, closer to Lake Las Vegas. It didn't narrow down his location much, but he'd be able to tell a little more as the sun sank and the shadows gave away more to his position.

Feeling a little better with the vague knowledge of where he was, he turned back, set on figuring out how he'd gotten there.

-o—o—o-

Nick was pacing back and forth. He couldn't stay still; staying still meant he was wasting time, effort, movement, something he could be using to find Greg. Standing still reminded him that he wasn't moving. That somewhere, in some ditch, Greg might not be either.

Giving a low growl of frustration, the Texan shook the thought out of his head, refusing to believe it. Greg was strong – he'd survived an exploding lab and being beaten almost to death. He would survive this too.

Nick glanced at the clock – five. Greg had been missing for more than ten hours already.

He had gotten the call nearly two hours before, just after he'd climbed out of the shower. Toweling his short, wet hair, he'd picked the phone up without a second thought, as his thoughts were mostly focused on the case he and Greggo had been working.

That call had changed everything. That call had stopped all his thoughts.

Since the beating, he had promised to keep a closer eye on Greg. Something in him had broken that day and he _needed_ to protect the lab-rat-turned-CSI. And he'd failed.

At seven o'clock that morning, a pizza delivery man had arrived at Greg Sanders' apartment, to find the door open and the residence completely trashed. There was no sign of the CSI. He had freaked when he found blood on the wall beside the door (dumb teenager wandered through the crime scene) and called 911.

Day Shift had done a thorough investigation, unwilling to call it a Missing Persons until they were fully confident that Greg was, in fact, missing. Hesitant to call a false alarm, Undersheriff Ecklie hadn't even reported the incident to Greg's supervisor until three o'clock.

Eight hours of wasted time. Not that Day Shift was incapable, but everyone knew that Grave had the better team. They solved more cases, and faster, on average every night than their opposing colleagues did during the day.

And Greg was now a _case_ of the utmost importance.

They had nothing, just like the other scenes. Nick, though itching to go to Greg's apartment and look for himself, knew that nothing would be found. Because as with the eight other victims, their Lab Rat turned CSI had been taken in exchange for more evidence than almost any other suspect ever left behind, but not a single clue as to where he was.

The department had already briefed them on the likelihood of his survival at this point. And it had only been ten hours.

Nick needed to be moving, he needed to be doing more than staring at photos from crime scenes months old. He needed to be looking at the photos from the scene only hours old. From the crime against his best friend.

He _needed_ to be finding Greg, because he'd already failed at protecting him. Again.

Why hadn't he taken the younger man up on his offer of a ride home? It was an occurrence that happened often, allowing them to de-stress, to brush around one another and pretend their flirtations meant nothing, to just be around another human being and forget, for a time, that they were more used to being around dead bodies.

And if he'd taken Greg up on the offer, the rookie CSI wouldn't have been at his apartment. Wouldn't have been alone to be injured and kidnapped.

Nick would have died before letting anyone lay a hand on his Greggo. But like an idiot, he hadn't accepted the invitation, too caught up in the case and too frustrated with the distraction Greg would prove to be.

This was all his fault.

-o—o—o-

Over the three hours since he'd first awakened, Greg learned several things. He was farther east than he had initially expected. Projected by the shadow's movements across the opening of his prison, he was directly south of Sunrise Mountain, which couldn't put him more than five miles from Lake Las Vegas and, if he remembered correctly, less than a mile to the suburbs surrounding this portion of the Wetlands.

He had spent half an hour after this realization screaming at the top of his lungs for anyone nearby who might hear him. It was only after those thirty minutes of responding silence, that he gave up, knowing it had been a long shot.

The Wetlands was a popular hiking area, but they were large, and most hikers stayed on the well-defined paths throughout them. And from what he could see, it didn't look like his little prison crossed any of those paths.

After his futile attempts at increasing his chance of rescue (complete with several more attempts on the bars), he resigned himself to finding a way to survive his imprisonment, rather than escape it.

There was a third exit (or entrance, from what he could discover) to the drainage system he was currently in. A grate, covering a two foot circular hole in the ceiling, had been exactly how he had arrived in his personal hell. Dumped, twelve feet to the cement floor.

He figured the only reason he didn't have any broken bones was due to Peter Carle's body. The man, whom he recognized from the missing persons photos he had been staring at for the previous twelve hours, was presumably thrown in first. Greg landed on him, saving his body from any major injuries.

He had woken up, rolled over, and stared directly into Peter's dead eyes.

The grate they must have been thrown down wasn't a service entrance to the sewer, as there was an open entrance not two dozen feet away, but a man-made hole in the ceiling. There was no ladder leading to it and the same crudely inserted bars that covered the original entrance stopped anyone from exiting.

He was a rat in a man-made cage.

Still a trained crime scene investigator, Greg put aside the job of getting up there to test the bars' strength, and began processing the ten bodies lying around him. He searched them tentatively for evidence that might hint at who had put him there and anything valuable he could put to use. He found several bottles of water that would come in handy on the hikers, as well as a length of rope attached to one of the backpacks. Both were wearing climbers belts.

They must have come off of a climb at Sunrise. He was thankful, despite their loss, because the gear would be helpful in getting up to and testing that grate.

The victims ranged from old to young (he shuddered when he came across a boy, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old), across the races, and their clothing suggested they were all taken at various times of the day (which Greg already knew from the eight case files he had poured over for months). The two unaccounted for, the hikers, had possibly, and very unluckily, stumbled upon their suspect while he was dumping bodies.

He found several zip-lock bags on the female hiker, which he immediately put to use as he gathered the ID's of all ten victims, as well as any evidence he could get from them, including nail scrapings (taken with a clipper he had found in a purse from one of the female corpses).

Once the evidence was as secure was it was going to get (and honestly, he would be surprised as hell if any of it could even be used, after such an extended period of time, which brought natural damage to the would-be evidence), he began searching through the tools left to him by his attacker. He found three cell phones, all dead, another two water bottles (giving him six total, though he had perhaps the total liquid quantity of four), a granola bar, chewing gum, make-up and tampons (some of the more useless items found in his search), several pens, a couple of hair ties and clips, more than four hundred dollars between the ten of them, and two condoms.

He decided to move all of this, conveniently stored within the two backpacks the hikers had previously owned, up to the ledge he had climbed earlier. His next step was to gather all of the scattered branches brought in by previous storms or gusty winds. He would need firewood.

It was hot (in the upper eighties, breeching the nineties) and stuffy in his cement confines, but he would need fire to purify any water he could get his hands on. And there wasn't going to be a lot of that.

When he was a child, his mother had not allowed him to enter the Boy Scouts, yet she had insisted he learn everything needed to survive. Building tents, foraging for food and the like. When he had announced he was moving to Vegas, he not only received several dozen pages worth of information about surviving if ever lost in the desert, but his mother had insisted he learn, and memorize to a tee, every page of it.

He knew, from his mother's paranoia, that he could survive with thirty ounces of water in ninety degree weather, for eight days. That was the equivalent of two bottles of water over a week-long period. He currently had about four bottles, so he would be able to survive, the bare minimum, of sixteen days with what he had.

It was early May, so the daily temperature wouldn't reach the nineties every day. He had, at the most, twenty days without more water, and by the end of those twenty days, he was going to be delirious and confused, suffering from nausea resulting in vomiting, headaches, cotton mouth and swollen tongue, decreased vision, and increased heart rate until he finally succumbed to a coma.

On top of dehydration, he would be running on no food, which was possibly a greater threat. Unlike water, he did not have a supply of nutrients, however small. And without food, he would grow weaker, less able to gather the water he would need to survive.

He currently held a granola bar and chewing gum, the latter would be of more use in keeping his mouth salivated than his stomach full. And no animal that he would be capable of catching was likely to wander in.

Now, he knew as well as most humans that he could survive four to six weeks without any food, but it would be even less in the heat and lack of water presented by Vegas's climate.

He would have five weeks at the most, before atrophy of his stomach would weaken his sense of thirst. At that point, vitamin deficiencies would result in disease. Decreased vision, skin irritation, anemia, scurvy, fungal infections, most likely beneath the esophagus, making swallowing unbearable. He would lose more than fifty percent of his body weight as his own cells ate him alive.

Leading up to that point, he would become lethargic and apathetic, sensitive to noise (not something he would really have to worry about out in the middle of nowhere). Diarrhea, flaky skin, dimming vision, and severe headaches and stomach pain as his organs withered away, rendering him useless. He would eventually succumb to hallucinations and convulsions following muscle pain and disturbances in the rhythm of his heart.

If the dehydration didn't put him into a coma, starvation would eventually result in heart failure.

He knew his colleagues – his friends – would already be searching for him, and that it might be selfish and impatient on his part, but he hoped they would find him _quickly_.

-o—o—o-

**Good Night White Knight**

_Chapter 2_

End

-o—o—o-

Well, I know it's a bit shorter than the previous chapter, but I figured I had already left you guys for sixth months without anything, which was, again, unacceptable (especially since half of this has been written for about four months now).

I hope it was still enjoyable.

**Author's Notes**:

…_brush around one another and pretend their flirtations meant nothing…_Yes, in this story, at this point in time, Nick and Greg know they like each other, but both are holding back, and so have not confessed anything. Nick is probably not quite as aware of his feelings as Greg is, but he knows he wants more from the lab rat than friendship.

…_This was all his fault…_Ever noticed how Nick is a bit self-destructive when it comes to blame? He's really good about taking everything that could have happened and making it, somehow, his fault.

_Weather_: I will be using an actual four week period of Las Vegas weather for this story. I am using recordings of May and June from the year 2008. The only change to this accuracy will be one day, taken instead from a 2006 recording. So the weather is accurate (mostly).

**End Author Notes**:

Thanks for reading and please take a second to review!


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